


Zuerst Volstrucker

by enigmaticNeurologist



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Augen Trust, Book: Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, Original Character(s), Original Character: Daegyn Neifsgalt, Volstrucker, about how my dnd char got to work with ikithon, grab a thesaurus and too much fig lang, holy shit i forgot how pretentious my writing was, if any of yall want me to take this out of the main cr tag thats cool, its purple prose time kids, just a lil story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticNeurologist/pseuds/enigmaticNeurologist
Summary: The Volstrucker program was created by Trent Ikithon, a ruthless network of spies and assassins that operated under the wishes of the Cerberus Assembly. Too bad the crown beat him to the idea half a century ahead of time.
Relationships: Original female character & Trent Ikithon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Zuerst Volstrucker

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a lil bit of fun backstory development! a couple of pals and i are playing through a homebrew campaign set in wildemount. when i saw the volstrucker backstory option i fuckin jumped at it! i decided to make my pc a rogue though, not a wizard. this is weird, bc trent seeks out mages in particular for the program. it's also weird, because my character is a high elf and is like twice the age of trent at the time we're playing. this fic is exploring their dynamic, and me trying to justify why the fuck trent picked this old non-magical person to recruit to his spy network of young impressionable spellcasters.

The silhouette of the Candles against the skyline of the rest of Rexxentrum was harsh, spindles of the horizon seemingly grabbed and stretched into the air, then filed sharply. Inhabitants of the Candles weren't much different: but unlike the buildings, the mages of the Cerberus Assembly did the stretching and filing by themselves. A new appointee to the Assembly had taken residence in one of the structures. This one was young, but something about him felt deeply aged. Cold. Hardened. The crown knew this, of course. They didn't know everything, not yet.

The grounds were empty at this time of night. An Assembly meeting was taking place, leaving most of the towers vacated of their mages. Servants or lightly armed guards stood watch, but it was dark. They were tired. They were unobservant. She was better. 

Melding into the shadows, first she waited. Watched. 

A shift went by, the guards changing stations. Another half hour progressed, and so did she. Silently, slowly, like frost across a windowpane. 

She kept her footsteps light as the next rotation began, darting up to the side door and noiselessly pulling her lockpicks out of her waistband. Eyes fixated on the approaching guard pair, she caught and held all of the pins mostly by feel, carefully twisting the door open and pulling it closed as the newly stationed guards took watch. 

* * *

It took her nearly ten minutes of navigating hallways, spiral staircases, and more locked doors, until she came across what appeared to be his study. As she approached the desk, her eye caught on a silver wire glued to the edges of the piece of furniture. The wire was mostly obscured by the nightmare of papers and letters strewn across the desk, any distinct book, spell, or correspondence almost impossible to pick out. 

"Interesting method," she said, her voice low enough to barely be audible to even her, the sound present more in her skull than her ears. 

Despite the mess, her gaze got stuck on a pair of words, two words that felt so recent, but whose consequences were almost seventy years in the past: _Vergessen Sanitorium._

Jaw tightening, she breathed in as she reached her hand out, extracting the paper from the many similar to it. 

To her surprise, a book came with it. Leather-bound, medium length, but not fully broken in yet. Less than a quarter of its pages had been used. Every few pages was topped with a date. No arcane glyphs anywhere, uncharacteristic of books belonging to a mage. Examining the page in question more closely, she began to read, in neat, but cramped Zemnian: 

_have to put my own pieces in play, this is ridiculous. His idea at its core is not the worst, but it is underutilized, and used against us more often than not. None of the other members have what it takes to make their own program. I have been making connections with the Vergessen Sanitorium. It is almost disappointing, how the inmates are wasted. It would prove a fantastic training ground for the taskforce--_

Her reading was interrupted by a rush of air and a loud cracking sound. The gust pushed the papers from the desk onto the floor, and she barely had time to shut the book before a hand grasped her wrist. 

Without thinking, her free hand dropped the book, the hilt of a blade falling into her open palm with a flick of her wrist. Her gaze and dagger snapped to her left, to the figure that had grabbed onto her. 

Her right hand was caught mid-swing, and a pulse of shocking energy jolted through her body, causing her hands to seize uncomfortably around the knife hilt and the book. Her vision came back to focus on the face of a surprisingly gaunt, but still young, human. He seemed in his mid-twenties, with long straw-like hair combed back from his forehead and falling to his upper back, his beard short and trimmed to a sharp point. 

She had to look down slightly to meet his gaze, "I would assume that you are Trent Ikithon?" her voice had a light Zemnian lilt to it, steady but quiet. 

Ikithon's hand tightened on her arm, his surprisingly long nails beginning to dig crescents into her skin, "Interesting, I was expecting them to send someone smarter."

"What do you mean by that?" in a motion that was slower than usual, but faster than Ikithon's ability to react, the hand holding the dagger twisted out of his grasp, swinging up and coming to rest next to the newly appointed Archmage's throat. 

His eyes scanned across the knife as it moved closer to him, catching momentarily on the crest of the Dwendalian empire embedded in its hilt, the signifier of members of the Augen Trust. Ikithon met her gaze again, a hint of smugness in his expression, "I do love it when suspicions are confirmed. What do I mean? All of you are repurposed thieves. You have no knowledge beyond how to swing a knife and pick a lock. Fetching letters, bringing them to the king, not recognizing basic alarm spells, the pillars of the Augen Trust."

Her teeth gritted over the course of his speech, the arm holding the knife growing increasingly tense. Voice level, she spoke, "And the Sanitorium would change this?"

Trent's eyes widened, his nails beginning to thoroughly gouge into her forearm. She used his moment of surprise to rip her held arm out of his grasp, keeping her other hand other steady at his throat. He swallowed thickly, "I left in under a minute, how did--"

"I only had the time to read a few sentences," a well worn boot lightly moved the leather bound journal closer to Ikithon. 

Still heeding the knife at his throat, the mage's gaze flicked down long enough to register the book, then met her's, face twisting into a barely restrained snarl, "What do you want?"

"I want to join."

A strong blink untwisted Ikithon's face, "You, what?"

"While I do not think I am an idiot, your description, earlier, fits. They tell us what we need to complete our missions. Many things are left missing from that. It is good work, important work, but we are, what was your word earlier? _Underutilized,_ " she began lightly gesturing with the knife as she spoke, increasing the space between Ikithon's neck and her blade. 

Ikithon's expression morphed into one of light concentration, and his next words were quieter, more contemplative, "Endorsement. That's an option."

"I did not get a chance to read much before you appeared," she finally let her dagger drop from Ikithon's neck, sliding it back into her sleeve as her arm relaxed, "I could be a trial run, you might say."

"Considering you did not know a common spell component and its use, I would put together you have no talent for the arcane?" Ikithon took a step back, picking his book up off the ground while maintaining eye contact with her. 

"You could say that, yes."

"In the future, I will likely recruit solely magically inclined students, but I suppose someone with your skill set and standing would be beneficial to begin with," Ikithon placed the journal onto the desk. "You know my name, and yours is..." he straightened his shoulders and extended a hand, the tips of his fingernails still stained slightly red. 

The corner of her mouth quirked upwards as she reached her hand out to meet his, "Daegyn. This will be refreshing."

**Author's Note:**

> i'm pretending that the Alarm spell's pinging radius can increase if cast at higher levels lmao, that's the thing that alerted trent.


End file.
